"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." a harmless statement from our Declaration of Independence. These three all fit together like "Happy Day, Dusty Bottoms and Ned Nederlander."(For those of you who are cinematically challenged, those are the Three Amigos. A movie from the 1990's.) The statement from The Declaration of Independence doesn't seem to be a contradiction in any way. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" all go together like three friends who have been friends for many years. However as our life in these United States continues into the future, it seems that society has found a way to divide and dissolve this friendship. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" has become a contradiction of sorts in our current social setting. "Life" has come to loggerheads with "pursuit of happiness."

Whether the framers foresaw this coming or not I don't really want to debate. What is undeniable though, is the fact that our society now considers the "pursuit of happiness" to include abortion. Those who cheer this culture of death have won the battle over language and have actually succeeded in making the law makers and judges in our land come to the conclusion that death is actually allowed in the "pursuit of happiness." Instead of the long held trust in the plain language of this statement, modern culture has come to include murder as a right endowed to us by our creator. The very thing that the Declaration of Independence came to defend and define, individual liberty, has become the very tool to destroy and enslave the personhood of a particular group of people. This will be the way of life/death in this world.

January 22, 2014 will be the 41st anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Since that day there have been an estimated 57 million abortions just in the United States. To put this in perspective, look up the 10 most populated cities in the U.S. and write those down. Now look for the most populated cities, number 11-20. Write those down. Now finally, write down the most populated cities, number 20-75 and now total all those cities populations and that is the number of citizens that have been murdered since 1973. The 75 most populated cities in the U.S. add up to 57 million! This year, 2014, we will add cities Chula Vista, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Norfolk and Chandler.(HT: Adam4d.com)

With all of this pursuing of happinessyou might think we would be a pretty happy and successful country. However the opposite is true. Oh some of these women and men who paid for, performed or had abortions may perceive themselves as more happy and free, they are living in denial of their sin. (Don't forget that we fundamentally disagree with the world and Satan in regards to the definition of happy, but for the sake of this article I digress.) The denial of sin is really a prison. David writes in Psalm 32 - " For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.4For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried upbas by the heat of summer. 5I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity;I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin."

Lord save us from the denial of our own sin!

David was groaning because the Lord's hand "was heavy upon me." The Lord peeled back David's security and exposed his sin. This was a sign of the Lord not giving David up. When we become comfortable with our sin, whatever they may be, that can actually be our sin chasing away the Holy Spirit. Jesus teaches that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin John 16:8. In Romans 1:24-32, St. Paul indicates that God will give up the unrepentant to their sin. Unrepentant people are in some ways happier because God has left them alone. This is why we don't judge our faith on a feeling of happiness. People mistake happiness or the warm fuzzies for God's approval.

Unfortunately this is a popular trend in the church, "Make the people happy and they will come." "Change the message of the church and people will come." "Change the way the church does things and people will come. If we don't change the church, it will die!" Those who make these statements believe that salvation comes from what we do. In trying to declare the church free to change they actually are reading her very death sentence, faith aborters.

Jesus calls out, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." Matt. 11:28. Jesus is rebuking those who refuse to acknowledge their sins. Jesus calls out to those who are living in Jewish cities. Cities who prided themselves in their lineage, their history, their freedom in Abraham. If this arrogance and pride can infect the very people God called his own, can it not also wreak havoc on you?

The Lord brings upon us discipline, Psalm 118 and this discipline is severe so that we would turn, and repent of our sin. What good would a God be who does not terrify us? What good would an impotent God be? But God works in two ways with us. God does this work of terrifying us and this is called his strange or alien work, Isaiah 28:21. God does this because our hearts become secure and we do not fear God's wrath. But he terrifies so that there may be comfort in his forgiveness. God's true and proper work is to comfort, 32"For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies," declares the Lord GOD. "Therefore, repent and live." Eze. 18:32

Many who have had abortions have repented and we give thanks. We rejoice with the angels in heaven at one who repents. This is why every Sunday we begin our Divine Service with confession and absolution. We all together stand before God and confess that we are sinners, we also confess specific sins to our pastor. We publicly confess with our lips so that the whole world would know we do not consider ourselves sinless. We have blood on our hands.

However, God in his rich mercy washes us clean with the innocent blood of Christ. So now we are no longer stained with the blood of Abel, but we have been forgiven by the blood of Christ.

Hebrews 12:24ff - Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.…28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,29 for our God is a consuming fire."

The sinner can never stand before God. God is "a consuming fire." that destroys the sinner. Sin is never rehabilitated. Sin is never improved. The sinner must be killed. Christ became your sin and was killed in your placeand in baptism you are crucified and raised with Christ. You are dead to sin and alive in Christ.

A man who does not want a child is called a "deadbeat." A woman who does not want a child is called "Pro Choice."

In this new and true life in Christ we now fight against temptation and the approval of sin in our world. Do not get wearied by the fight for life, for consider what Christ endured to defend your life. Consider what lengths Christ went to, to secure for you eternity in heaven. The fight against abortion is defending the gifts of God given to us,

Psalm 127 - "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.5 Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate."

In Christ,

Pastor Ottmers

“The Supreme Court decision of 1973 is just as wrong as the Dred Scott ruling of 1857, which held that slaves were property and not “persons” under the law! It took a Civil War to reverse that! The constitutional status of the unborn to-day is completely analogous. The moral and legal absurdity of our present situation is that while the corporations which slaughter the unborn for profit have full constitutional protection as (corporate) “persons” in law, their genuinely human victims do not! We cannot rest until this obscenity is reversed.” K. Marquart, “Abortion and Luther’s Two Kingdoms Theology,” 23.